Computer systems are becoming increasingly complicated everyday. As chip designers strive to increase performance of the chips used in typical computer systems, power consumption by these chips has correspondingly increased. Furthermore, when these computer systems are grouped together, such as servers in a rack, the total power consumption of the group can exceed 20 MW. In addition, cooling systems needed to remove the large amount of heat dissipated by the computer systems in the rack also tend to consume a significant amount of power. When considering a data center, which may house a large number of racks, power is a significant factor in the cost of ownership of the multi-computer systems and installations.
One conventional approach for conserving power includes voltage and frequency scaling. Voltage and frequency scaling is used to reduce the power consumption of a processor when it is determined that the processor is not being fully utilized. Voltage and frequency scaling typically comprises reducing the clock speed of the processor, which results in a power savings. However, the power savings are minimal, and in a multi-computer system the impact on power consumption is limited.